Vicious Cycle
by Ferality
Summary: Just a quick one-shot. A brief character piece, giving a glimpse into the mind and reasoning of a Hunter who has likely become the very thing he hunts. Rated M to be safe.


**A/N:** Okay, given a busy schedule, and writer's block that seems to actually be caused by a flood of ideas trying to all cram themselves through a very narrow window of expression, I have still been unable to actually piece together the story that I want so desperately to write. In the meantime, I decided to try to vent some of the ideas in small, controlled bursts by way of little one-shots designed to be brief glimpses into various characters that may or may not appear in other works I do.

_Disclaimer: I do not own the World of Darkness, or any of the concepts it encompasses. This is a non-profit work of fiction... I'm sure you all get the general idea._

A pair of green eyes wandered along the ceiling above the couch, tracing the minute cracks in the plaster, watching the way the nearby desk lamp seemed to waver on occasion, possibly due to the nervous rocking motion of a foot being transferred through it from the floor, by way of the table. The foot and the eyes belonged to entire person currently laying on the couch, his hands folded over his chest, and one foot settled flat on the floor. The young man, perhaps no older than 26 at a glance, sighed, moving a hand to run it through an unruly mop of short red-hair on his head, licking his lips.

"I don't even know where to begin, doc, you know?" He started, his voice conversational, though sounding a bit resigned. He shrugged one shoulder, and the hand that had tried in vain to smooth his hair down, now hovered in the air above him, as if grasping for the right words physically. "I mean, I suppose the beginning is as good a place as any, but sometimes I find myself unsure of where and when exactly it all began." His hand had taken to moving and gesturing with the words, as if trying to add emphasis and draw them out at the same time. However, the young man fell silent again, and his hand dropped to his chest again, his green gaze again roaming the ceiling.

After several silent moments he began again. "I guess... I guess it really started a few years ago. But..." He moved a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. "Okay, you know what, how about this. First, let me get this out in the open. I hunt monsters. And I know what you're thinking, the question there, burning in the forefront of your mind... No, I'm not a vigilante who tracks down drug dealers and child-molesters. I mean, I hunt literal monsters. The things that go bump in the night. And I know how crazy that sounds, but they are out there." He said, the tone and pitch in his voice altering almost imperceptibly as he spoke, almost like one would expect before an outbreak of hysteria. "And that again, takes us back to how it all started..."

The young man fell silent again for a few moments, his green gaze seemed to be diving back into the memories of the events he was to be discussing. As he did so, his hand slipped into the pocket of his denim jacket, pulling out a hard mint candy. He unwrapped it idly, and popped it into his mouth. "It was about six years ago..?" He paused in thought, trying to weigh the exact passage of time since the event. "I think that was right. Time's kind of gotten away from me lately. Anyways, I had just started attending college. I hadn't exactly decided what I wanted to get my degree in, there were so many interesting fields; electrical-engineering, psychology, computer programming, hell I even kicked around the idea of business and economics for a while. But, I figured I'd have time to figure it all out, and like a lot of college kids, I was just wanting to take a few months to absorb my newly found freedom and independence. And debt, man was there ever a lot of debt. I found out there are over seventy different ways to cook ramen noodles, and after you've eaten them all, you really want nothing else to do with them, ever." He chuckled a bit, his hand idly rubbing at his forehead. "Yeah, good times... But, I think it was sometime around my sixth month when things got... Well, weird, I guess is the only I could describe it. I wasn't much of a party animal, preferring to keep to myself and my studies. Not really because I was studious I guess, but I found the subject material really fascinating. That and I was still in an awkward phase where meeting new people was... eh... difficult." His hands had taken to waving and gesturing in the air as he spoke again, and his foot continued its display of nervous energy by bouncing on the floor. "So, I was really kinda' surprised when I actually got invited to one of those rave parties. I'd never been to one before, so all I had to go on was what I'd heard in passing from other people. Usually that it was a bunch of kids high on E, dancing with glow sticks to overly loud electronica music... Have you heard that stuff? I really don't see the draw to it, myself. It all sounds the same to me, and none of it sounds good. Kind of like industrial rock. That sounds like an accident at a steel mill... Ugh, anyways, sorry... I digress. But, I was invited by a classmate who happened to be female, and attractive, so my hormones ended up making the choice for me. We've all been there before, right?" He chuckled again, but it petered off quickly, leaving him pinching the bridge of his nose, and falling back into silence.

"Anyways, the night of the rave party arrived, and I went, feeling so ridiculously out of place. I mean, there I was, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, amidst a crowd of people clad in fishnet shirts, and tripp pants. I always thought the name was fitting, since there were so many needless straps and chains on them it was a wonder anyone wearing them could move at all without tripping. Needless to say, I made friends with the wall surprisingly quickly. I guess I stuck around as long as I did in the hopes of running into the girl who had invited me, or hell, just anyone else I may have recognized. That didn't exactly happen." He paused to lick his lips, and run a hand back through his hair. "I ended up with a huge headache after a couple of minutes. The music was horrible, and the strobe lights and glow sticks were hurting my eyes. I was actually in the process of trying to navigate through the crowd to get to the exit, when I ran into _her._ And no, this is not the same 'her' that invited me. This is a different 'her'. This 'her' is _the_ 'her'. The one who is located right at the start of when the strange shit in my life started happening. Pardon my language." He shook his head, his eyes again following the cracks in the ceiling, though not really seeing them as he pulled up the details of the memory.

"In hindsight I suppose I should have known something was up. First off, she was gorgeous. Not, girl next-door gorgeous, or even really supermodel gorgeous. It was this odd, dangerous sex-appeal she seemed to have. Watching he was kind of like watching a feline stalking its prey. If felines had pale skin, and a 36D chest size with a generous display of cleavage." He chuckled a bit, but it sounded a bit forced. "And she had this entourage following her around. And here she was, coming up to talk to someone who looked like this." He said, gesturing towards his own face. Aside from a pretty wicked scar on his left cheek, he could best be described as being rather plain looking. Extraordinarily ordinary, as he often referred to himself. "The scar wasn't there at the time, that happened later. A run in with something in the sewer system. Another tale, another time, I suppose. But still, a looker, I am not. So, her approaching me should have sent up a shit-ton of red flags. And maybe they did, but it's hard to pay attention to them when you have the kind of view I did. I have to say, red silk really compliments pale skin. Especially when it only covers a little more than half of any given breast." He waved his hand in the air above him, as if physically dismissing the thought.

"Anyways, she wanted to talk. Took an interest in what classes I was attending, where I wanted to go with my future. It was weird. I felt almost like I was talking to a guidance counselor from a porn movie. Only, she apparently took the role rather seriously. Turns out, and I didn't find out until later, she was interested because she was looking to do some recruiting. Not for her entourage, that was more like a herd. Remember when I said I hunted monsters? Yeah, that's what she was. I believe the common term for them is a vampire. Yes, that kind of vampire. Drinks blood, burns up in the sunlight, and trust me on that, those books are full of shit, I seen what they do in the sunlight, and the only sparkling you get is because their skin is burning away. It's a lot like the sparks that come off of a campfire. But, another fun fact about them, is that they seem to like using humans kind of like game pieces. And she was looking for someone who may gain a good deal of influence that she could use later. I don't understand the whole extent of it, but long story short, she wanted someone at her beck and call that could handle certain situations for her. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept." His lips pulled into a kind of smirk, and he shook his head slowly, as if thinking about some kind of inside joke.

"But yeah, she was after me, just not in the way most guys would hope. I lucked out though, in a weird twist of fate. That was the day I found out not only about monsters lurking in the shadows, but that there were those who fought against them. And my first encounter with them is what saved me from my first encounter with the supernatural. Specifically, an entire sorority seemed to be dedicated to dealing with vampires that used college campuses as feeding grounds. And the mysterious woman at the club was one who they had had their sights on for quite some time. I guess I was just lucky that night." He chuckled bitterly. "Well, you know, if you can call that luck. I mean, yeah, I obviously survived the encounter, but what do you do once you know about these things? It's really hard to tell anyone you think may be able to help. Police, doctors, even the government will write you off as being completely bat-shit crazy. It also doesn't help that these... _things_ have their dirty claws sunk into just about every mortal establishment. You know, I've heard rumors that even some of the organizations that hunt them are being manipulated by monsters of some sort. So, really, where can you go when you know a truth like this? A truth no one else seems ready to, or even capable of, believing?" He sighed and shook his head, lapsing back into silence.

It took several long moments before he started speaking again. "Anyways, after that, I had to try to find others. Others who would believe me. They did exist, but it wasn't exactly like they had a huge ad campaign. I found you had to ask the right questions, to the right people, at the right time, in the right places. It was a bit of an annoyance, but I found myself. I knew about them, and what if they found out that I knew? So, I sought safety in numbers. That... Well, that didn't work out quite as well I had been hoping it would. As I had found out from personal experience, this kind of thing starts to take its toll. And a lot of the others I had met were developing obvious tells about it. Or maybe they were just completely fucking crazy to begin with. It's really hard to tell in some cases. And I've only met some of the small-time players. I've heard rumors about government agencies that officially don't exist, who handle shit like this. Or an R&D branch of some big name pharmaceutical company that tracks these things down for medical experimentation and research. Word is, some of their field agents are almost as monstrous as the things that stalk the night. Never met any myself though... But, as it turns out, safety in numbers is not always a guaranteed thing. And not all monsters are completely inhuman..." He pulled his top lip between his teeth, sucking in air around it, as if trying to think about how to continue his story.

"You know the Riverbrook Butcher? Well, I mean, I'm sure you do. Guy was big in the news only a few years ago. They said he was responsible for the deaths of... What, nine people? Eight, nine? Something like that, in the Riverbrook suburbs? That was a monster. Well... Actually, I find that one hard to classify... He wasn't a monster in the Dracula, Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon sense, but when you stood there, looking him in the eyes... He wasn't human. Maybe once, but not anymore..." The green eyes had stopped staring at the ceiling, and had an odd glazed look about them as he reminisced. "The bodies the authorities found... They weren't his targets. Those were just the ones who got in the way. That's the only reason the police found them. Because they were unimportant to him, so he saw no need to concern himself with them further. His targets... They didn't get off so easy. I know you want to know how I know this... I was there. Me and a group of about six others went to investigate. It was personal. One of the other guys had a teenage daughter that had gone missing. We didn't know what we were after at first. We figured it was probably just another blood-sucker out for a new doll for his collection, or something along those lines. These people had dealt with ghosts, vampires, even a demon, if they were to be believed. I wasn't exactly inexperienced myself. Though, truth be told, I was usually a decoy, or the planner for the groups I'd been in. You know, play to the strengths and all that. We were... I can't say unprepared, exactly, but we were caught a bit off guard by what we had found. We got a monster like we were expecting, but not in the sense we were expecting it. And this guy was dangerous. Well, not him exactly, but what he had constructed. His twisted, fucked up little 'playground'. An entire block of condemned buildings and warehouses, and this guy had turned it into some kind of fun house from hell." He ran his hands over his face, breathing out heavily, the silence having once again descended as he seemed to ponder his words, and the best way to use them to express the memories.

"Needless to say, we found Lucille, the daughter we were looking for... She uh... She'd been vivisected, strapped to a table, and had had majority of her organs removed from her body... She was still alive when we found her, connected to some kind of machine that was keeping her body alive... But, obviously in incredible pain, from the screams she was emitting. Those are... Well, they're not the sort of thing you forget. Ever. And she wasn't the only victim. We found easily a dozen more, in various stages of dead and dying. Some fell victim to sinister traps, others looked more like they were put on display. We found one victim strung up like a marionette... Well, we thought it was one victim. A closer examination revealed it to be closer to one and a half, or maybe more. It was really hard to tell which parts belonged to what victims, but the stitching, altered skin tones, and presence of four separate arms and three legs clued us in that it was more than just one victim we were looking at there. And those weren't even the worst of what we found. And speaking of victims..." He pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "You have no idea how dangerous that place was. Literally, unless you were there, you cannot have any possible idea. I was the only one to make it out of there. And what's worse, is I could do nothing but watch as the others fell victim to the sadistic traps, one by one. I was standing right there when Tracy made a misstep that ended up with her falling between a pair of giant rotating gears, whose sole reason seemed to be to assist people in performing an impression of hamburger. I was stuck on the other side of a door when it slammed closed, catching Richard in a room that doubled as a furnace. And if you think the sounds of screaming are bad, then try listening to the sounds of bone and muscle being pulverized, or trying to forget the smell of burning flesh." His took a breath, seemingly to compose himself as his voice had once again taken that odd, pre-hysteria tone. "Sorry. And you know how the killings stopped? Just out of the blue. The news announced that the prime suspect was arrested for a speeding ticket, and it must have been the guy since the killings stopped after that? Not the case. You know what really stopped the guy? A bad case of dead, brought about by a length of steel pipe. It was the first time I had been directly responsible for a death. But after what I had survived, what he'd put me through... And then his gloating... When I finally found him, he stood there and told me I simply didn't appreciate the beauty he created. The vision that drove him. He said that the others were all now a part of something greater than they could have ever been otherwise. And he mocked me... Told me that killing him was pointless. It wouldn't bring anyone back. It wouldn't undo anything he did. And he was right... But you know what? As I beat his skull into a bloody paste on the concrete, it sure made me feel better."

The silence descended again as he chewed his bottom lip this time, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. "I guess that was a turning point, though. That was the first time I'd ever been driven to kill one of what I hunted. I mean, I had seen them die, but I guess I believed that since I wasn't directly responsible, I was absolved of any guilt. It turns out, there is no guilt. I realized that, that day. I didn't feel guilty that I had killed a man. I felt justified that I had crushed a monster. Something that destroyed lives, just to appease some twisted dementia. It was... liberating, in a sense. And it also allowed me to see the rest of the picture. It allowed me to finally look at what needed to be done, and accept that I could do it. But new problems arose. You know what the trickiest part of hunting these things is? Finding them. They are good at hiding, and like I said earlier, they have their claws in everything, allowing them to obscure their presence rather easily. So, you have to draw them out, but you have to do so carefully. If you go kicking the proverbial hornet's nest, making a big fuss, drawing a lot of attention, and the like, you will only force them to go deeper into hiding while they let their lackeys deal with the situation. But, if you're subtle, if you pluck the right threads of the web, in just the right way, you can draw the spiders out to investigate." It was at this point that he turned to actually look at the man he spoke to. "You know what I mean, doc?"

The man in question shook his head frantically, trying to say something around the dishtowel tied around his head, and wedged between his teeth, serving as a gag. He pulled futilely at the zip ties holding his arms and legs to the chair he was sitting on, and all of his fingers were bent at unnatural angles, so even if he did free himself, there was little chance of actually defending himself.

The young man sighed, pushing himself to sit upright on the couch. With a sigh, he shook his head, and spoke to the doctor in a tone like one would use when explaining something to a young child. "C'mon doc, you think I don't know? Like I said, these things are involved in everything. It's unfortunate, really, but the best way to draw their attention without scaring them off, is to go after their resources. And you..." He shrugs, almost apologetically. "Well, you're a very well respected psychologist, who just happens to work for the wrong people." He pushed himself to his feet, pausing only a moment to lean down over the form of a blood woman, a blood pool already coagulating under her. He gripped the handle of the fireman's hatchet, and pulled. The woman's unseeing eyes stared up at him accusingly, as her skull seemed reluctant to relinquish its grip on the spike-end of the tool. "Damn, I must of got a better shot than I thought. It's really wedged in there..." He muttered to himself, placing his foot on the woman's chest and using it for added leverage, finally wrenching his weapon free, taking a moment to wipe it clean on the woman's blouse. "Sorry about your wife, by the way. In my defense, she was supposed to be out of town with her sister for the weekend. How was I supposed to know she'd be back early?" He said, almost conversationally, offering a sheepish smile that would be more suitable for a 'sorry I backed over mailbox' apology, as opposed to a 'sorry I just axe-murdered your wife in cold blood' apology. He cleared his throat and returned the hatchet to the inside of his jacket.

"Anyways, thanks for listening. I really needed to get that stuff off of my chest. It's not healthy to keep it inside for too long, you know?" He walked over to where the restrained doctor sat, patting him on the shoulder. "Well, I'll show myself out. And I'll give your regards to your higher-ups when I finally meet them. You have a pleasant night. Or, you know, what's left of it." He gave the doctor a smile, though it was an action that didn't seem to diminish the horrifying look in the younger man's eyes. And then, the young man was gone. The doctor sat stunned for several moments, trying to figure out what had just transpired, while also trying to psychoanalyze the intruder.

Meanwhile, the young man, one Tyler Matheson, was in a dark blue sedan, and moving away from the scene. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a cell phone. He punched in the number, and set the phone down on the passengers seat. He knew how this would work. He would catch the leech's attention, and it would start to stir. The activity would draw in local hunter cells. They would pose as a thorn in his side, eventually irritating him into slipping up, and revealing himself, and Tyler would watching, waiting to strike. This wasn't the first time he had done this after all. It was just such a shame no one else seemed to grasp the simple elegance of his plans.

Meanwhile, his presence at the doctors was erased in the subsequent explosion, a direct result of a wired explosive located under the chair the doctor was strapped to, and rigged to blow when it was called.

**A/N:** Okay, so that's a look into the mind of Tyler Matheson. The main inspiration for this came from a friend of mine who wanted me to run a villain (of sorts) NPC for his game. I accepted, but realized I wasn't sure where to go. So, this is the mind-set I decided to play around a bit with. So, feel free to review and let me know what you thought. I'm not exactly a great author, but occasionally, I get the urge to write, and have to work with what I have.


End file.
